Women's Soccer No. 12 in Coaches' Poll

Coach Izzo-Brown led the Mountaineers to their first Big 12 Soccer Championship title, the first Big 12 postseason championship for any WVU team.

Photo by Steve Prunty

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University women’s soccer team is ranked No. 12 in the final National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)/Continental Tire College Rankings for the 2013 season.

The Mountaineers were ranked No. 12 in the Nov. 12 poll, the last rankings released prior to the start of the 2013 NCAA Tournament.

Today’s ranking is the program’s highest postseason finish since placing seventh in 2007. WVU last earned a spot in the NSCAA Postseason Rankings in 2011 and was ranked No. 18.

After receiving votes in the 2013 preseason poll and the Aug. 27 poll, WVU entered the rankings on Sept. 3 at No. 19 and did not fall out of the poll for the remainder of the season. The Mountaineers were ranked as high as No. 9 on Oct. 22.

National Champion UCLA is ranked No. 1, NCAA runner-up Florida State is No. 2 and Virginia is No. 3. Virginia Tech is No. 4, North Carolina is No. 5, Michigan is No. 6 and Santa Clara is No. 7. Texas A&M, Stanford and Florida round out the top 10.

Texas Tech is the Big 12 Conference’s other representative and checks in at No. 17.

The Mountaineers were slotted at No. 8 in yesterday’s final TopDrawerSoccer.com Top 25 Rankings.

WVU closed out its championship season at 16-4-3 bowing out of the 2013 NCAA Tournament with a second round, 1-0 loss at No. 1-seed Virginia Tech on Nov. 22. The Mountaineers went 7-1 in Big 12 play en route to their second straight conference regular-season title and first Big 12 Soccer Championship win. Senior Frances Silva, a 2013 M.A.C. Hermann Trophy semifinalist, and freshman Kadeisha Buchanan were named to the 2013 NSCAA/Continental Tire All-America Second Team, while 18-year coach Nikki Izzo-Brown, the two-time reigning Big 12 Coach of the Year, was named the NSCAA Central Region Coach of the Year.